49 - Grateful Dead - Blues For Allah - 1975

Side One
Help On The Way
Slipknot!
Franklin's Tower
King Solomon's Marbles
Stronger Than Dirt or Milkin' The Turkey
The Music Never Stopped

Side Two
Crazy Fingers
Sage & Spirit
Blues For Allah
Sand Castles & Glass Camels
Unusual Occurrences in the Desert


DISCOVERY; This came out the same month as Another Green World and Caress of Steel. I listened to this one the least of the three. I didn't understand it! It didn't rock, wasn't strange and trippy and there wasn't a killer guitar solo with pinched harmonics like on the Rush album or ludicrous bass playing like on the Eno album. It's a pretty mellow affair. Almost jazz? Why did I get it in the first place? I thought I needed to expand my horizons. I'd heard some Grateful Dead late night KQ which I liked and this, their latest album has a pretty cool cover! I played it a couple of times and filed it away under music for old hippies.

WHERE & WHEN; Looks like I'm an old hippy now! So what is it I like about this now? I like the fact that I can listen to this album and this band in general and not retain any of it. I can't tell you which are the stand out tracks because I can't remember them the instant they stop playing. That's exactly what I like about jazz and quite a bit of the classical music I listen to. If a melody does stick in my head I have no idea what it's called or where it belongs. Most of The Grateful Dead catalogue up to and including Blues For Allah is very pleasant, the guitars interweave constantly, layers of vocals and percussion and very little of it plays back in my head after. The sound they make is unique and belongs to a long gone time and place I was never part of. Ticks a lot of boxes. It didn't then... it does now.

FURTHER NOTE; Of those original songs I heard on the radio back in 1975, I still can't tell you what they are called or which albums they belong to. That makes listening to The Grateful Dead a very pleasant experience. I'll never be able to name the good tracks or the good albums, much like Can in that way. Also similar to Can in that all of their uninteresting material was done post 1976. If The Grateful Dead had relocated to Germany, they would have been one of the great Krautrock bands of the 70s. Likewise, if Can had relocated to San Francisco, well...

HIGHLIGHTS; (the whole album)

STATUS; CD